Many social networking services and/or media file sharing services offer platforms for many individuals to share the happenings of their daily lives by way of digital-media content. Social networking services often include a website that focuses on building and/or reflecting social relations among people who, for example, share common interests, activities, and/or geographic location. Additionally, media sharing services are often platforms that allow users to aggregate, upload, compress, host, and/or distribute digital-media content. Many social networking services also maintain a platform for sharing and/or browsing digital-media content. That being said, most platforms employed by social networking services and/or media sharing services limit the number of ways users are allowed to browse digital-media.
Many social networking services and/or media sharing services allow users to employ search filters to browse digital-media content. Such search filters may include searching by at most one or two criteria, such as social-graph-related criteria, (e.g., by a group of friends or co-workers); by geolocation-related criteria, (e.g., by a physical location or locations); or by time-related criteria, (e.g., by a specified date, time, and/or event). However, some users may want to browse shared digital-media content using a combination of three or more search filters.
For example, Facebook.com, provided by Facebook, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. (“Facebook”) allows its users to browse shared digital-media content, but users may browse shared digital-media content associated with only a given user, or they may browse shared digital-media content associated with multiple users but for only a single event. However, these browsing limitations may be a problem, as some users may wish to browse shared digital-media content shared by multiple users for a given time-related criterion, other users may wish to browse shared digital-media content of a given user associated with multiple events, while still other users may wish to browse shared digital-media content associated with multiple users for a given time range.
By way of another example, YouTube.com, provided by Google, Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. (“YouTube”) allows users to access digital video content, and allows users to make a user profile in order to share digital videos that the user creates and/or uploads to the site. But YouTube lacks the capability to filter shared digital-media content for a given social group, and YouTube does not allow users to browse shared digital-media content by a specified geolocation-related criterion. Lacking social networking functionality is a problem to some users, as they may wish to browse shared digital-media content associated with a specified group of users for an intended social graph. Or some users may wish to browse digital-media content shared by users of a specified geographic region.
Additionally, some social networking services and/or media sharing services allow users to view their social networks and/or display shared digital-media content via an interactive map. However, most social networking services employing interactive maps are limited to displaying markers at locations specified by a given person in the viewer's social network. For example, BlooSee.com, provided by BlooSee, Inc. of San Francisco, Calif. (“BlooSee”), is an ocean mapping web site where sailors, divers, surfers, and other seafarers share information and knowledge about the oceans by tagging locations on an interactive map. However, BlooSee does not allow users to filter tagged locations by any criteria other than by geolocation-related criterion and/or social-graph-related criterion.
Likewise, other geolocation driven media sharing services may allow viewers to browse, by geolocation-related criteria, digital-media that is shared by a given user. However, these services fail to allow viewers to browse shared digital-media content by time-related criteria. For instance, Panoramio.com, provided by Google, Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. (“Panoramio”), allows users to browse uploaded photos as a layer on an interactive map. However, Panoramio is limited to browsing shared digital-media content associated with a geolocation. Restricting the browsing filters to geolocation-related criteria alone may be a problem in that some users may wish to browse shared digital-media content using multiple search filters in addition to a specified geolocation-related criterion.
Further, many social networking services do not offer users the ability to browse digital-media by a chosen time-related criterion. For instance, many social networking services, such as Facebook and the like, allow users to label shared digital-media content with a time and/or date, but do not allow users to search for shared digital-media content by the labeled time and/or date. However, some users may wish to browse shared digital-media content by searching for a specified time and/or date.
Moreover, many social networking services do not offer users the ability to browse digital-media by a specified time-range. For example, liveshare.com, provided by Cooliris, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. allows users to share digital photos in real-time (i.e., sharing digital-media during the present time), but does not allow users to browse shared digital-media content by specifying a time range that does not include the present time and/or date. However, some users may wish to browse shared digital-media content by a specified time-related criterion that does not include present time and/or date. Additionally, liveshare.com does not allow users to browse shared digital-media by a specified geolocation-related criterion. However, other users may wish to browse shared digital-media content by a specified time range and by a specified geolocation-related criterion.